


Juno Steel and the Bandit of Brahma

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: Junoverse Cowboy AU [3]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Non-Binary Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Cowboy AU, Former Sheriff Juno Steel, Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, Nonbinary Juno Steel, Other, angel of brahmaish, bandit nureyev, no it isn't green, non-canon-typical blood because we don't have lasers in the wild west, simp juno steel, the Ruby 7 is a horse, the carte blanche is a horse, the death is mag and it's in chapter one don't worry, whether or not it's green is up to the reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25251805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: When a stranger stumbles into the Lighthouse saloon bleeding out and weaving a tale about a bandit without a name, former Sheriff Juno Steel is forced to make his way back home and face a few old demons.This is a part of a larger series, but will make sense without the other two fics. I'll be updating daily!!
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Junoverse Cowboy AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1823821
Comments: 28
Kudos: 97





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: mentions of stabbery, blood/blood loss, alcohol, murder, manipulation/gaslighting (it's Mag what did you expect), mentions of gun violence

The dying man slumped against the bar of the Lighthouse, one hand white-knuckled on the wood and the other white-knuckled on his glass. He’d ordered whiskey. Didn’t matter what type or how it was poured, he’d said. He just wanted one final burn down the throat before he went to Hell. 

Jet Sikuliaq had brought him in, explaining in a grave whisper that he had found the man when out on one of his walks. Jet often preferred the cacti and red rocks for company, and on some days, the former Sheriff Juno Steel couldn’t blame him. 

Backlit against the sky, still yellowed with the last dregs of sunset, Jet and the writhing mass in his arms cast a long, oppressive shadow against the interior of the saloon known as the Lighthouse. Juno barely caught the glass he dropped, a part of him scared to break the silence. 

The creak of Jet’s footstep on the old floorboard did that for him. Jet never stepped on that board, except when his mind was far away from the present. 

Juno had seen enough to know what had happened before the dying man could be bothered to speak. The blood and gore dyeing his clothing the color of old brick seeped from knife wounds, all of them deep, and all of them strategic. It had been a crime of passion, and it had been committed by the last person Juno would ever want to have wronged. 

All the wounds were made with a distinct purpose: the man would die a slow and painful death. 

Jet had propped the man up against the bar when the stranger waved away Vespa’s offer of medical help. He said he wouldn’t make it much longer either way. Juno didn’t have the stomach to look at him for long, but he had seen enough to agree with him on that point. 

Vespa offered him a drink instead, just to numb things for a while. The dying man ordered. Buddy poured. 

“Won’t you do me one last favor?” He rasped, bringing the whiskey to his lips with a hand that trembled like a sinner in church. “Allow me one last confessional.” 

“Give us a name, and then maybe—“ Juno was cut off when Rita, a new hire and old friend, jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. 

“Shh, let ‘em talk!” 

“Mag,” the man wheezed. He propped himself up on the counter with one elbow. Now with a better vantage point, he shot daggers at Rita and Juno from wild, smoldering eyes. “Not that it matters to you.” 

Juno swallowed a retort. As much as he wanted to give that man a piece of his mind for even bothering to look at Rita that way, he wanted to hear his story even more. 

“So what happened?” Buddy asked, standing up a little straighter in silent defense of her staff. Whatever meanstreak—preexisting or from pain, Juno was unsure—lay in Mag’s eyes crumbled. 

“Stabbed.” 

Juno snorted mirthlessly. 

“I kinda put that together for myself, thanks.”

Rita elbowed him again, and he shut up. 

“My son. Not really, but I found him on the street, young enough he didn’t know an enemy from a friend, and I took him in,” Mag started, something dying in his eyes as he spoke. His face, half hidden by his scraggly beard, turned to the ceiling, as if looking away was easier. “You don’t need to know his name. He doesn’t like to give it. I saw an opportunity in that boy. I’m from Brahma, just up north of here. I’m sure you know of the sheriff, mayor, and judge there. The sheriff likes to shoot, the judge likes to hang, and the mayor likes to allow it. The best way to get by is to get in their good books. The easiest way to do that is to pay them.” 

Mag paused with a pained shudder, hand going so tight around his glass that Juno worried it would break. When the episode seemed to pass, he raised the glass to his lips again and took a messy gulp, punctuated by a slam and a splatter as the glass found its way back to the bar. He motioned for Buddy to top him off, and she did so in silence. 

“It was a Hell on Earth up there. Lots of innocent people getting killed or thrown in jail for saying what they thought. Pretty difficult to say I was wrong for wanting it to come to a stop.” 

The murmur of agreement was soft enough that the distant evening wind nearly drowned it out. 

“So I told my boy his father had been one of the ones hanged for no reason. He had been a freedom fighter like me and had his neck broken just for thinking the wrong way. It might as well have been true. My boy believed me without question and did his part for the cause. Even when he was a bit older and decided to—“ he broke off with a wince. “Expand his horizons, he would always come back at a single letter’s notice. When I told him I was going to take matters into my own hands, he was back by morning.” 

Mag swallowed down the rest of his drink with a shudder, but held up a hand when Buddy offered more. 

“There was to be a town hall, attended by the mayor, sheriff, and judge, not to mention all their rich friends. I had dynamite and a plan. It was only when he found out all the citizens would be casualties too did he turn on me.” 

His words rang out like the tolling of a funeral bell in the silent room. 

“He said he knew I lied about his father, and that this was going too far, even though it would have ended the pattern of injustice that was bigger than just the individuals—“

“Stick to the story,” Vespa snapped. Juno almost jumped at the sound of her voice over his shoulder. 

“He—“ Mag made a weak gesture at his injuries. “Did this. Left me on the edge of town. I didn’t see what happened to him, but I heard three gunshots, and my boy never missed.” 

He sounded almost proud. That alone was enough to make Juno’s stomach churn, though his blood went cold when he heard what Mag had to say next. 

“I saw him riding off towards Hyperion after that, if you care. I wouldn’t bother going after him. He’ll raise enough hell on his own,” Mag murmured. Juno wasn’t sure if the whiskey or the blood loss had gotten to him first, but he was beginning to lose what semblance of clarity remained. 

“What was his name?” Juno finally managed. It was a miracle he did so without getting sick. 

“I told you. He doesn’t like giving it out,” Mag muttered, almost to himself. 

Juno swallowed, glancing between the stony faces of his coworkers, throats all dry and thoughts all dancing around the elephant in the room. 

Nobody batted an eye when Juno stood, strapping the pistol he could hardly shoot anymore to his leg. 

“I’ll be back by tomorrow. I’m taking the horse,” he said, overwhelmed for his voice to be anything but flat. “If I’m not back by then—“ 

Juno shook his head, threw open the batwing doors, and left behind only the creak of a floorboard he couldn’t be bothered to step over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for a knife fight, minor injuries, mentions of blood, mentions of nausea, mentions of murder, references to alcohol as an unhealthy coping mechanism (past)

Blanche didn’t like him as much as she liked Jet or Buddy, but Juno didn’t mind having something to complain about. It meant that he could go a few minutes longer before boredom with the surrounding desert and the monotonous pounding of his heart led to thoughts of newly appointed Sheriff Omar Khan. 

He didn’t like Khan, but that didn’t mean he wanted the guy dead. He had a wife and a few kids, and from what Juno had seen, he meant the world to each and every one of them. At the end of the day, he was a good man. Shit sheriff, but a good man. 

The problem was that he was a good man drowning in shady deputies and a judge who liked to hang. Khan didn’t keep good company, but by no fault of his own. 

Some people let the power get to them. Some people gritted their teeth and did what they could to make a broken system a little bit better. The smart ones left. 

The only decent thing Juno ever did as sheriff was quit. 

All it had cost him was a bullet between Mayor O’Flaherty’s eyes. Juno spent far too many of his waking moments convincing himself it hadn’t gone to waste. 

At the end of the day, Sheriff Khan was a good man doing what he could to keep Hyperion in one piece, but Juno doubted a freedom fighter on a murder spree would take that into account. 

The best case scenario was that a terrorist with a change of heart was running away from a mistake and searching for refuge. It was a nice story. Juno would have loved to believe it for a second. 

Hyperion was about an hour from Brahma on horseback. Cerberus was closer to fifteen minutes. If Mag’s so-called kid had really just wanted refuge, he would have stumbled into the Lighthouse long before Mag could drag himself there. 

As much as Juno wanted to pity the young man, faced with ultimate betrayal and blood on his hands, there was a risk in going soft on him. Mag said he never missed, something he would only know if the young man had killed before. It was also hard to judge the mental state of such a person. Whether or not he would lash out in Sheriff Khan’s direction remained to be seen, and Juno didn’t necessarily trust the deputies to deescalate the situation. 

It was likely he’d been seen with blood on his hands and shot on sight. As much as he distrusted this mysterious figure, a good part of Juno didn’t want him dead either. 

In the last light of the dying sun, Juno could make out Hyperion growing over the horizon. He had never experienced such a return before. Usually, after long trips far from home, a warmth would build in his chest at the sight of the city that raised him. 

Now, all he felt was the same cold knot that formed in his stomach when he stared at a bottle for a moment too long. Going back felt like giving in to something awful, so instead, he forced his mind into a plan. He would find Khan, tell him everything, then leave. He’d take backroads and climb into the sheriff’s office through the window. He wouldn’t even ride by his old home. 

Hyperion was just another city he would never go back to, and this time, he assured himself he would leave it for good. He was just doing the right thing. A favor for an old friend. 

Hyperion loomed large on the horizon now, though Juno’s eye was drawn not by the city, but by a pair of hoof prints leading off around the back of Main Street. 

Juno would have bet his hat they were headed directly for the sheriff’s office. He motioned for Blanche to slow, stopping entirely a few hundred feet from where another horse was tied. He would be quieter on foot. 

He was close enough to see a shadow through the dark, night having smothered the last remains of sunset in the west. Juno couldn’t make out much about the man, save for the glint of a reddened knife in the moonlight. The buildings looked too large now for Juno to see the clock tower, but something told him if midnight were not here already, it was approaching. 

Juno’s last look at Hyperion with two eyes had been a gunfight at noon. It felt fitting his first with one eye would be a midnight duel by knife. 

As much as he hated it, he would have to apprehend the man if he wanted Omar Khan to survive the night. He wasn’t sure if Khan shared Juno’s habit of sleeping in his office, but he didn’t want to find out the hard way. The man had an already bloodstained knife, and that probably didn’t mean his visit to the sheriff was going to be a pleasant surprise. 

The part of Juno’s brain that liked cushy things like benefit of the doubt suggested the man was only shocked and paranoid. Juno had long since learned how to shut that part of his brain up. 

Juno was close enough to smell the blood on the man now, though he could see none of it. Even with the light of the full moon, the man’s clothes were dark. Juno pulled his hat lower over his face, remembering just how welcome he was in Hyperion. If their approaching duel drew onlookers, his best hope was to run. 

Every step in the sand was slow. Toe to heel. Even his breaths bated as he drew closer to the unknown man. Whether or not fear had stolen the air from his lungs, he could not tell. Until he was discovered, however, it was best not to try to get it back. 

Juno spared a look around the corner of the building next door to the office. He would have to surprise the stranger, whose face he could now see was hidden behind a bandana. He couldn’t have recognized the man if he wanted to, though a big, empty part of his chest that liked to ache at the most inopportune moments throbbed at the thought of someone he desperately hoped the man was not. 

He hurried back around the building to catch up with the man, mind racing to decide whether to disarm him, press a gun to his back, or catch him in a chokehold. It had to be something non-lethal, and it had to be something that gave him time to explain himself. There wouldn’t be more blood on his hands that he regretted. He had sworn that when he decided to leave this city behind. 

A shard of broken bottle from a fight Juno himself had dissipated seemed to scream in agony under his heel. 

He doubted any citizen would have been woken by the crunch, let alone surprised by it. However, a knife appeared in the exterior wall behind his head, still wobbling from the impact when Juno saw exactly who had thrown it. 

The man might as well have been Mag’s biological son, for the same wildfire blazed in what of his eyes Juno could make out. He ripped the knife from the wall before Juno could even think to counter, forcing him to execute a clumsy dodge that nearly lost him a finger. 

“You missed,” Juno spat. 

A muffled laugh, as cool and dry as a desert wind in winter, came from behind the man’s bandana. 

“That was a warning shot.” 

Juno lunged for his knife with a nine inch blade of his own, hoping in the long-term to disarm him long enough to talk some sense into the guy. In the short term, he was hoping to not get gutted by him. 

With any other opponent, the maneuver would have been their end. However, the man flicked his wrist and left a nasty slash on the back of Juno’s arm, painful enough that he was forced to stifle his yelp between gritted teeth. Juno retaliated with a stabbing motion that was parried an uncountable number of times.

The man looked almost bored. If Juno could wield a knife like that, he would be too. 

His yawn was an opening, however. Bringing a knife to a knife fight might not have been enough against someone clearly masterful with a blade. However, Juno had been doing fisticuffs since he was big enough to teach his brother how to punch. If his adversary lost the weapon, it tipped the fight in his favor. 

It cost him another slash, but a well-aimed kick to the hand was enough to disarm the both of them. The knives clattered to the ground, their finality piercing the blanket of silence. Soon, their percussion was joined by various dull thuds as the pair wrestled, Juno trying his damndest to pin the guy against the wall or ground or any flat surface that would take him while his adversary reached repeatedly for his knife. 

They broke only for a moment when Juno accidentally pushed too hard, and before he could so much as regain his footing, he felt the barrel of a gun pressing into the center of his forehead. Now frozen and panting, he could get a halfway decent look at the man about to kill him. 

Mag had made him sound younger than Juno expected. He couldn’t see much of the guy, but he had to be around Juno’s own age. Juno had noticed that his hands were gloved when they collided with his jaw, but only now did he notice the fine leather, dark and sleek as the rest of him. He was tall, with dark, unkempt hair that poked out from behind a hat knocked askew in their fight. An idiotic part of Juno supposed he might have been handsome behind the bandana and the hat and the bloodstains drying all across his clothing. 

Juno squeezed his eye shut in a brace for the end when he felt the gun move. He jumped, heart rate only settling when he realized the gentle touch had only been to knock Juno’s hat away from where it shadowed his face. 

“Juno,” the man gasped. That all-too-familiar way he said Juno’s name confirmed the worst of his suspicions. Juno didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so he stomached vomit instead. “What on earth happened to your eye?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew!! Hate to leave you all on a cliffhanger there, but I will update tomorrow!!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! Make sure to smash that kudos button, leave a comment down below, and don't forget to stay awesome!!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric !!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been too long since Juno and Nureyev have talked. They've both got a hell of a story to tell, and a hell of an event to relive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a major flashback in this one, just a heads up!!
> 
> Content warnings: blood, murder, gun violence, injury, mention of painkillers, alcohol, mentions of alcohol dependency, Juno's canon-typical self hatred

“Nureyev,“ Juno breathed, able to voice only the most powerful of the many thoughts racing through his mind at that moment. Peter’s gun lowered back to his side, and after a soft sigh and a shake of his head, he returned it to its holster entirely. 

“Don’t,” Nureyev said. 

“What the hell did I do?”

“Just—don’t say my name the way you used to,” he sighed, stooping to pick up his knife. Juno would have lurched to stop him if he weren’t frozen with shock. 

Those hands that now slid the knife back into his belt had been so familiar once. Juno would have thought he would recognize the way they felt on him, after all that time. He was forced to remind himself that it hadn’t been very long. Time just seemed to last forever when he was spending it with Nureyev. 

Besides, he never felt those hands cause him anything like the newly blooming bruises on his torso. Peter had said he’d never hurt Juno, either by hand or word. He couldn’t, even if he’d wanted to. 

Of course, Juno hadn’t been able to return the favor. 

“Sorry for using your name. What would you prefer, Glass? Rose?” Juno said. He swore he didn’t mean to sound so bitter. 

“I don’t know why the hell I came here in the first place. Why don’t you just leave? Then you won’t have to use anything at all,” Nureyev spat, grimacing as if the words themselves were causing him physical pain. 

Juno wasn’t sure if he’d broken his ribs or his heart. 

“Look, I know I’m probably the last person you want helping you right now—“

“Aha, the genius sheriff makes another incredible deduction.” 

Juno glared. 

“You don’t have to like it, but you look like you’ve had a hell of a day, and I’m offering you a hand,” Juno returned. “Sink or swim. It’s up to you.” 

Nureyev bristled, though his indignance wore out all too quickly. He sighed, conceding.

“Alright. If you say so.” 

Juno cocked his head in the direction of the sheriff’s office. “I doubt the new guy found the whiskey I kept under that floorboard, and you look like you could use a drink,” he offered, fiddling through his pocket for a key. 

The key, as stubborn as always, decided to hide from him for far too long, leading to a painful silence filled only by the soft rustling of Juno’s pockets. 

That quiet patch of night seemed to stretch for eons, filled to bursting with things left unsaid and apologies that clawed at Juno’s throat as he tried to focus on his fingers and what did and didn’t feel like metal. 

He sighed, reaching into a pocket of his pants when the key didn’t appear. 

“I’m sor—“ 

“I’m here for a drink, not a second chance, Juno,” Peter snapped before Juno could apologize for his unorganized pockets. He spat out Juno’s name like it was poisonous, unlike how he’d often savored the two syllables as if he would grieve them the moment they fell away from his lips. 

The knot in Juno’s stomach twisted tighter. It barely had the decency to loosen in celebration as he found the right key and opened the back door of the office. 

Nureyev didn’t bother to let him hold the door open. Juno couldn’t blame him, lighting an oil lamp with a spare match he had in order to look away from Nureyev a moment longer. 

Peter made himself comfortable sitting in what was once Juno’s chair with his feet on what had never been Juno’s desk. The already churning feeling in the former sheriff’s stomach worsened at the sight of the office’s remodeling. He had never decorated much, so he was sure anything at all would feel horribly incorrect. However, there was a certain wrongness to the new desk and pictures of Khan’s family that drew Juno’s gaze to the floor. 

In search of a distraction, Juno tapped his boot around on the floor until he found the board that came up. He sprung it free in a single clean movement, hating himself just a little for how practiced pulling up the board was. 

He strolled over to the desk with whiskey in one hand and a glass in the other. 

“I would have expected a pair of glasses,” Nureyev mused. 

“I don’t drink anymore.” 

Peter merely nodded at that, pulling his gloves from his hands as he stared at the dim amber of the bottle, glowing in the lamplight. 

“I didn’t know you had kids,” Nureyev said in a voice so small Juno briefly thought he had imagined him saying it. When Juno looked up, Peter was running a clean, ungloved hand over a picture frame on Khan’s desk. “Or a wife.” 

“I don’t.” 

“But I thought—“

Juno shook his head. “I’m not the sheriff anymore.” 

“If I may ask, what happened?” 

It was a simple enough question. Juno learned some things he shouldn’t have, shot the mayor, and was presumed dead after his own deputy shot his eye out. 

But Juno couldn’t help but think that it had started almost a year before then, when Nureyev had swung back into his life on a beam of starlight and asked the sheriff to join him on an adventure. 

. . . 

“Duke Rose, at your service,” the man with the all too familiar horse and a bag filled to bursting with snake oil beamed. “It’s an honor to meet the acclaimed Sheriff Juno Steel at last. All these lawmen trying to arrest me for the last twenty minutes have had nothing but the kindest reviews.” 

“Let him go. He’s an old friend,” Juno snapped, waving away a peevish crowd of deputies and so-called ‘concerned citizens’ in the hopes of a word with ‘Rose’ alone. When the street had finally cleared, he shot a pointed glare in Nureyev’s direction. “What the hell do you think you’re doing back here? If they find us out, it’s not just gonna be you going to the hangman.” 

“Relax, my dear sheriff,” Nureyev smiled, leaning back against the farrier’s shop as if it had been erected for the sole purpose of bearing his weight. “Duke Rose is a well established snake oil salesman.” 

Juno snorted. “Pretty big fall from gentleman bandit.” 

“Only when I have to, darling. Rose’s only crime is selling water in fancy little bottles and calling it a love potion,” Nureyev chuckled. “Care to try one for yourself?” 

“Don’t think I need one. Your last letter was enough,” Juno finally managed to grin. 

Peter made to stand up, but paused and raised an eyebrow when Juno offered him an arm. 

“Quite the display of chivalry.”

“What can I say? I learned from the best,” Juno smiled, crooked from a long scar that he had still yet to stop hating. Peter gazed at him like he was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. 

Nureyev took his arm in order to stand, then replaced his bag where it had been resting atop his mare’s back. 

“Still on Ruby, then? Isn’t that a bit dangerous?” Juno asked. 

“Brock Engstrom isn’t here, Juno. He’s busy trying to explain to his investors how I robbed his unrobbable train,” Nureyev mused. 

“Why don’t we keep things like that off the record?” 

“My love, I thought we were off the record,” Nureyev smiled, impossibly sharp and impossibly soft all in one moment. 

They had strolled far enough from Main Street and close enough to the desert that Juno felt comfortable taking him by the hand. The afternoon sun hung high in the giant, endless sky, every big and blue and beautiful inch of it alight. 

It was the second prettiest thing in the whole desert, in Juno’s opinion. His eyes had spent so long lingering on the curve of Nureyev’s cheek that he barely had time to notice that the sky bore not a single cloud. 

“Letters don’t compare to your company, Juno,” Nureyev murmured. They were close now, to a point of near-discomfort in the burning heat. The sun, however, was the last thing on Juno’s mind when Nureyev kissed him. He didn’t spare a thought for anything but those silk-soft lips and just how gentle they were against his own when they both had the time to appreciate one another. 

Their last meeting had been rushed, Juno clinging to every second of Peter Nureyev he could while helping Nureyev to escape an unjust hanging. 

He had prayed for a quiet moment like this for weeks, sated only by the occasional letter in which he could barely manage to put his feelings into words. He was so sure of the quantity of those feelings, but never the specifics. 

Sometimes the letters would be signed by names Juno had never heard before. Other times, just a cherry red lipstick kiss. More often than not, they were not signed at all. Juno always knew the sender. 

Thoughts that were not so soft wormed their way into his mind when the kiss broke, refusing to be repressed. It was difficult, of course, to be a sheriff carrying on a secret romance with the thief he had set free. Writing was so much easier. 

The more awful train of thought was one that had clawed in by force and refused to leave, sitting at the back of his mind at all hours and writhing with horrid laughter as his stomach churned at its words. He was a sheriff, and Nureyev was a thief. At the end of the day, it couldn’t ever work, or at least never in the way they described in their letters. Juno couldn’t hide it forever, and at the end of the day, he’d have to choose between protecting his city and his own happiness, sacrificing Nureyev’s in the process. 

A part of Juno already knew that he’d pick Hyperion in a heartbeat. He kissed Nureyev again in the hopes that the thoughts might fade, though he found his hopes unfounded. 

“So,” he started after a long moment. “What brings you back to Hyperion?”

“You, Juno.”

“I’ve told you, I can’t leave,” Juno sighed. “I don’t trust this new mayor as far as I can throw him—“

Nureyev shook his head. 

“I just wanted to be with you. At least just for a little while.” 

“That’s awfully sweet and all, but we both know you’re risking your neck to be here. There’s something going on, isn’t there?” Juno thought aloud, a knowing smile crossing his face. “You’re bad at admitting you need help, Nureyev.” 

“It seems you have me in a corner again,” Nureyev chuckled, the sound soft and sweet like wedding bells. Juno thought it was a pity it ever had to end. 

“So what’s the deal? Need somewhere to hide while Engstrom does his to skin you?” 

“I think I might have an excuse for you to run away with me,” Nureyev began, breaking off Juno’s protest as he continued. “For a day or two.” 

Juno couldn’t help a tentative smile. 

“I think I can make a day or two work,” he said, a soft warmth growing in his chest as Nureyev positively beamed. “What’s the job?” 

“A certain businesswoman named Miasma is planning to destroy on that stretch of land,” Nureyev began, gesturing to a rock formation in the distance. “There’s a pre-existing cave she intends to use when setting off dynamite to clear that mountain. She’s planning to sell it to a railway company.” 

“Let me guess: she doesn’t own the land?” 

“Precisely.” 

“And what makes you so interested in preventing destruction of property? Usually you don’t seem too concerned with that kind of thing,” Juno said. 

“I’m not. I have ample evidence to suggest the quantity of those explosives will be enough to utterly destroy the lives or livelihoods of those who make their homes nearby,” Peter began. Juno gave him a questioning look before he continued. “And she’s planning to sell it to Brock Engstrom.” 

“There it is.” 

“Plenty of good people die laying those tracks,” Nureyev returned. “So?”

“Good enough reason as any to get me out of this damn city for a day,” Juno said, unable to help but smile at how stupidly happy that seemed to make Nureyev. 

“Go make your arrangements. I’ll be with Ruby,” he said in a tone that might have suggested they were getting married instead of whatever Nureyev had planned. 

“This is a serious mission, dammit,” Juno tried to say without breaking a smile. His efforts were decimated when Nureyev pressed a kiss to his forehead. 

“A serious mission I get to spend with you, my love.” 

Juno’s memory tended to be too detail-oriented for his own damn good. He hadn’t forgotten what his brother’s blood smelled like after almost two decades, and he certainly hadn’t forgotten the taste of gunpowder in the air that hadn’t seemed to leave his mouth even when Ben was long buried. 

For once, his memory had left behind most of their mission. Juno could remember an outline. As far as a textbook definition, it went well. When Miasma fired a pair of rapid shots in their direction, a shootout had commenced. None of the explosives had gone off, and the only casualty was Miasma herself. 

Juno mostly remembered that from being informed later. 

On the other hand, he could remember, clear as day, just how heavy Nureyev was when he was limp and bleeding. Juno stopped covering Nureyev for only a few seconds to stand and try to shoot down Miasma for himself. Even if he was hurt or killed in the process, Miasma would likely be struck down and Nureyev might leave entirely unscathed. 

He had miscalculated gravely. If he was scrambling for a silver lining, at least Miasma had miscalculated as well. Assuming she was a faster draw, she had fired at Nureyev, hoping to distract Juno long enough to kill him too. 

They used to call Juno the fastest draw in the west. He’d bet he still was, not that it meant jack shit anymore. 

Miasma was dead, a hole right between the eyes. Juno couldn’t care less. 

The moment he saw that his bullet had shot straight, he sank to his knees, Nureyev’s scream whirring in his ears and making his stomach churn. His hands, once unflappably steady, were now throwing Nureyev’s jacket and vest and shirt open as fast as they could in search of the bullet wound. 

Peter was saying something, but Juno couldn’t hear over the static in his own head. When his trembling fingers caught on the buttons of Nureyev’s shirt, he ripped it open by hand. He would pay for another one later, he told himself, insisting that Nureyev would live. He had to live.

Juno hadn’t realized how ragged his own breathing was until Nureyev was squeezing his hand. 

“Darling,” Nureyev panted, white-knuckled against Juno’s hand. “I can feel it. I think that’s a good sign. Not as damaged as it could be.” 

“You were shot, that’s not good whether you can feel it or not,” Juno choked. Nureyev’s hand, red with his own blood, reached up for his face. Juno swallowed thickly as he felt one of those clever fingers wipe away his tear, only to smear something else in its place. 

“I think she—“ Nureyev broke off, the movement of his arm back to his side causing sudden agony. His cry of pain wrenched every part of Juno, who felt in his body’s response to this panic that he might be able to bend iron by hand. 

Bending iron wouldn’t save Nureyev’s life. 

Instead, Juno finished ripping open his shirt, wincing at the sight of the bloodied wound. He couldn’t tell if it was a graze or something far, far worse. 

“I think I’m going to have to touch it to see if the bullet’s out,” Juno grimaced. Nureyev gave a frantic nod in response. 

“Get me something to bite down on,” he gasped. “You don’t need to hear any more of this.” 

Juno folded up the sleeve of Nureyev’s jacket and passed it his way, swallowing down fear and guilt and bile as he turned back to Peter’s heaving torso and ran a pair of fingers along the wound. His free hand closed around Nureyev’s and squeezed. With the stench of blood in his nose and Nureyev’s muffled scream in his ears and nothing but Ben in his mind, it was hard to focus on anything. One thing, however, became clear. 

“Just a graze,” Juno confirmed. “A bad one, but a graze. Bullet didn’t lodge in there.”

Juno’s back hit the ground beside Peter in relief, a disbelieving laugh rising from his chest as he did so. Nureyev brought Juno’s bloody hand up to his lips and kissed his knuckles. His lips, still soft as ever, missed their usual spot. Juno didn’t particularly care. 

“Always the gentleman,” Juno smiled weakly. 

“Always for my lady, Juno,” Peter returned, though his voice was half a groan. “As much as this gentleman would love to continue wooing his beloved, I believe he would do well to seek a medical professional.” 

Juno snorted. After a long moment, he forced himself to stand on trembling legs as he picked Nureyev up bridal-style. A knot in his stomach tightened at the thought of marriage and what the future might bring for them, but he did his best to push it aside. The present needed to be his concern. 

“Never change,” he murmured, half to himself. “Never, ever change.” 

Hyperion’s doctor couldn’t do much more than stitch the wound and give ‘Duke Rose’ a few painkillers that left him mostly asleep for two entire days. Juno only left the hotel room to bring back necessities and any small comforts he could manage. 

When he asked what Nureyev wanted, the response was almost always the same. 

“You, Juno.” 

Even delirious, Peter had a way of making Juno’s heart ache like no one had before. As such, Juno spent as little time away from the room as possible. 

Nureyev kept making excuses to stay a bit longer, though when he no longer needed the bandages for his side, his need to stay bedridden with Juno in his arms for just a few minutes longer felt like more and more of a lie. Juno wouldn’t have minded if fate had dealt him a kinder hand, but it seemed even in life, he was a shitty gambler. 

It was after an evening Juno couldn’t forget if he tried that the decision became clear in his mind. Their activities had managed to, as far as he knew, knock Nureyev out entirely. The last of the pain medications left in his system certainly weren’t helping with his alertness. Juno just wished he didn’t have to look so peaceful in his sleep. 

Nureyev might have lived this time. He might have even made a full recovery. However, Juno knew exactly how it would all end, with more blood on his hands, a new nightmare to add to the mix, and a whole new chorus of demons to try and drink off. 

When people got close to him, they got hurt. When people made the mistake of trusting him, they got killed. Nureyev had made that mistake far too long ago. 

Juno thought about leaving a note, but he was never as good with words as he wanted to be. 

Instead, he rolled out of bed. He got dressed. He wished he hadn’t heard his own name, murmured through the dark like some kind of awful prayer. 

If fate had been a little kinder, he might have shut the door a moment sooner, and Nureyev’s voice wouldn’t have spent the next year ringing through his head. 

But fate had never liked Juno Steel. 

. . . 

Juno shook his head. 

“It’s a long story, and I’ve had a long day. Why don’t I pour you a drink first?” 

Nureyev almost smiled. 

“I certainly can’t say no to an offer like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta-reader wanted me to tell you all that this hurt her. lmao. 
> 
> I might publish this flashback as its own fic at some point, so stay on the lookout for that!! Thanks for reading!! Smash that kudos button, leave a comment down below, and don't forget to stay awesome!!
> 
> If you (rightfully) want to yell at me for this, my tumblr is @hopeless-eccentric


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoy!!
> 
> Content warnings: mentions of murder, mentions of injury, mentions of surgery, mentions of past-self hatred, mentions of former ableism, alcohol, mentions of abuse/gaslighting

Juno winced at the bottle’s familiar curve in his hand as he poured the glass. It was a nice bottle and he even had half a mind to save it to store his perfume. 

The rest of him wanted to smash it to bits. As a compromise, he set it back onto the desk with a sonorous clink and took his hands off of the thing entirely. 

He repurposed his grip around Nureyev’s glass, which he handed over. A slide would have sufficed. It’s what he might’ve done at the Lighthouse saloon when Buddy needed more hands on deck for a busy evening. He didn’t usually like to be around the drinks themselves, but there was only so much one could manage on their own. 

A part of him hoped their hands might touch, if only for a moment, when the glass was all that separated them. 

They did. 

That tiny brush of skin to skin stole the air from Juno’s lungs. The jolt from his fingertips was enough that a small part of him worried they might have caught fire. 

If Nureyev was even remotely moved, he showed no sign of it, though the speed at which the glass came to his lips could have been to cover a break in his facade of calm. On the other hand, he could have just been having a hell of a day. 

“I’m sorry if I hurt you earlier,” Juno began, beginning to pace around the office in search of any kind of medical equipment. Whatever they once had, if it remained at all, seemed to be hiding from him specifically. “I might be able to take care of some minor medical stuff, but if it’s bad, I know a lady.” 

“I’m fine. I don’t think you quite broke my rib, but you missed breaking my jaw by a few inches,” Peter began, sounding almost impressed. 

“Aim’s not what it used to be,” he shrugged, giving up on the first aid kit and taking a seat in the wood backed chair adjacent to Peter and the desk. “I’m still working on that balance. I compensated a little too much that time.” 

“Ah, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. How did you lose your eye?”

“Evading lawmen.”

Nureyev raised an eyebrow with his glass frozen aloft. He sat up a little straighter in his seat as the glass sank back to the desk. 

“So is that what happened to Sheriff Steel?”

Juno envied Nureyev for having a glass of anything at all. He would’ve taken a drink of muddy water if it meant having something to do with his hands. 

“It’s a long story,” he began, as a quasi-apology, rather than an evasion. Nureyev shook his head. 

“As much as I hate it, I think I’ll always have the time to worry about you,” Peter smiled, though the look was tense, as if a million thoughts were banging their fists on the other side of his head. 

Juno snorted. “You first. Can’t blame a lady for being curious when he finds ‘esteemed highway bandit Peter Nureyev—‘” Juno’s grandiose tone broke Nureyev into poorly repressed laughter. Perhaps it really was that funny. Perhaps he’d just had a really long day. Either way, Juno couldn’t stop that all too familiar warmth in his chest when he remembered just how much he had missed hearing Nureyev laugh. “—Breaking into his old office. Covered head to toe in blood. Holding a knife. I mean, there’s wrong place at the wrong time, but Jesus Christ.”

Nureyev bit his laughter back behind one fist, the other hand clutching at his side as he did so. Suddenly, Juno began to find his gentle ribbing a lot less funny. 

“Juno, dear, you seem to have put it together for yourself,” Nureyev started, the pet name slipping from his lips unnoticed. “I have simply had, as you might say it, a hell of a day.”

“Yep. And I wanna hear about it.”

“Good God, you never change.”

Juno shrugged. “I’m down an eye, a badge, and a drinking problem. I’d say that’s a lot.”

Nureyev sighed and took another sip from his glass. Juno couldn’t help but suspect this was partially just to hide his face. 

“If I’m going to tell you about the kind of day I’ve had, I’m going to do so when I’m a little further into this glass, so I would suggest you start talking now and save us all some time,” he said.

“Fine with me,” Juno began. “I just have one question.”

“How broad of a question, may I ask?” Nureyev all but groaned. 

“Yes or no.”

Peter’s glass returned to the table as he nodded. 

“Did you, like—“ Juno broke off with a groan. There was no way this was going to come out the right way, and he knew it already. “Stab anybody today? Leave anybody for dead in the desert south of Brahma?”

Nureyev took a long drink. 

“Yes.”

“Right. Just confirming a suspicion.”

As little as Juno could see of Peter in the flickering lamplight, he could tell all the blood had drained from his face. When they first met, in this same town, close to the same time of evening, and perhaps even under the light of the same lamp, he had all but laughed at the prospect of his own hanging. 

Seeing him crack now certainly didn’t make the knot in Juno’s stomach any looser. 

“Do you know if he lived?” Nureyev asked in a small voice. Juno shook his head, and Peter let out a sigh of relief. 

“Nope. Stumbled into the saloon I work at. He was dying on the counter when I left, and I doubt he made it long after that.”

“Thank God. He was—” Peter swallowed. “An awful man.” 

He almost sounded like he was trying to convince himself. For a moment, Juno saw a shadow of Benten dance across his face, though it might have just been the trembling of the tiny flame keeping the room alight. 

“I put that much together. If he were decent, he would’ve bled out on a chair.”

Nureyev let out a bleak laugh. “And to think he called himself a hero of the working class.”

“He was, if by that he meant giving the working class more work,” Juno snorted. 

“Dear God, it’s hard to fathom you two in the same room,” Nureyev murmured, turning back to his drink. “I’m not done with this glass yet, and I’d like to put off thinking about him for as long as possible, thank you very much. You can start that story you promised me any time now.”

Juno braced for pointed words about broken promises, but Peter was kind enough to spare him. 

“I...uh…” he started, eye finding its way to the flame as he began to talk. Eye contact was a little too painful just yet. Staring into the light would be easier. “Do you remember that mayor I mentioned when—” he grasped for words that wouldn’t come. 

Nureyev swooped in to save him, though his voice was ice.

“The last time we saw one another?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes. You said you didn’t trust him, if I’m remembering correctly.”

“Yeah, and I was right not to. I’m sure I wrote to you about ma at some point,” Juno continued, looking up long enough to see Nureyev nod. He sighed, relieved that he didn’t have another painful memory to relive. “Turns out he had something to do with all that, not to mention a plan to ‘improve’ the town at the cost of a hell of a lot of livelihoods. So I confronted him and told him if he was a man he’d meet me at high noon with a second and a doctor. He was too proud to say no, and—“ 

Juno was broken off by Nureyev’s quiet voice. 

“You never miss.” 

“Right.” 

Juno had paused to meet his eye across the room and found it soft in the firelight. Perhaps it was the warping effect of the low light that made Nureyev look as if he might have forgiven him. Juno knew it was stupid to hope. If it had been him in that hotel room that night, he didn’t know if he’d be able to forgive himself. However, he could have sworn, if just for a second, that Nureyev’s face looked softer. 

“I—well,” he started once more, eyes falling towards the flame when Nureyev’s face seemed too bright to look at. “I’d already written Khan—that’s the new sheriff— a resignation letter with the whole story, just in case Ramses killed me. That didn’t stop all his friends from going after me, but hey, most of the department was just looking for an excuse to hang me anyway, so they weren’t gonna turn up an opportunity like that.” 

He paused for a sigh, using the little break to pretend he couldn’t feel Nureyev’s gaze like the beating of the midday sun, blistering and searing him down to the bone. The knot of guilt twisted in his stomach once more. 

“It gets fuzzy for a little while. I’m pretty sure they thought they’d killed me when they shot my eye out, so they left me to rot in the desert.” His throat went dry at the memory. 

He left out some more specific details, like how the cries of the buzzards had contorted to an all too familiar scream, the wind a half-asleep voice murmuring his name when visions of water weren’t dancing in his eye. His mind couldn’t seem to decide if his rescuer looked like Peter or Benten, though he passed out before he had the chance to decide. 

“I woke up in a thief den and they told me everything I missed. Turns out someone found me and took me to an old war surgeon who’ll take the occasional pro bono patient. They couldn’t save my eye, but hell, it beats being dead,” Juno explained, pausing to look up as Nureyev spoke, something strange passing over his face. 

“I’m sorry about your eye.”

Juno swallowed. He had spent an awful lot of time sorry about his eye too. Rita, who had moved to Cerberus to be closer to her mother, once had to physically drag him from a gun range after he spent two hours in the sun missing every empty beer bottle he wanted to shatter to bits. After a hug and a long talk, they settled on smashing them the old fashioned way together. 

After a while, the missing eye just became another part of him. It was a sacrifice he had to make to save a lot of people and leave Hyperion behind, but at long last, he had stopped regretting it. 

“I think I’d be in a lot worse shape if the guy who dragged me out of the desert didn’t decide to keep me around. The company’s been a—” he bit back the word ‘lifesaver.’ “It’s been a big help. Turns out he’s an old friend of Buddy Aurinko’s, and she needed someone to stand by the bar at her saloon and look pretty.”

“You’re kidding.” 

“Nope. I’ve been working at her saloon for a couple months now. Best damn job I’ve ever had,” Juno chuckled. “They’re looking for another employee, if you need somewhere to lie low for a while.” 

“As much as I’d love to take you up on that offer, I’m not sure how much the company of a murderer is welcome among thieves.” 

Juno’s heart, which had been pounding uncomfortably with guilt and excitement and who knew what else, sunk. 

“How much did Mag tell you?” Peter asked after a long, sobering pause. He said the man’s name like he was looking at the crushed remains of a scorpion under the heel of his boot. Juno couldn’t be sure if the disgust curling Nureyev’s lip was directed at the old man or himself. 

“He found a kid, raised him on lies, tried to make him commit mass murder, then had the nerve to be surprised when the kid turned around and killed him for it,” Juno returned. 

Juno tried to imagine Nureyev with a knife in his hand and a look like wildfire in his eyes, but neither the Peter in his mind’s eye or his line of sight could fit the picture. He held his glass in one white-knuckled hand. The other hand rubbed against his temple, knocking his glasses askew as he did so. Even when burdened by injury or painkillers or that awful moment when the light from the open hotel room door spilled across his face, Juno had never seen Nureyev look this tired in his life. 

“Did he tell you about the mayor?” 

“Yeah. And the judge and sheriff,” Juno confirmed. 

“Anything else?” 

“He looked kinda proud.” 

Nureyev spat on the floor. The room gaped with cavernous silence after that, broken only by a rustling of fabric as Peter buried his head in his hands. 

“I came here to find you, you know,” he murmured, head shaking. “Of all people.” 

“You must be in a hell of a place if I’m your best option.” 

“My only option,” Nureyev corrected, voice still muffled in his hands. 

“Yeah. Meaning I’m your best option.” 

Juno had never considered himself very good at comfort, but it seemed to be paying off. Nureyev raised his head and shot a glare at him, though it would have been more effective if he hadn’t been fighting back a tired smile. 

“You’re an idiot,” he said.

“Hey, I take pride in that.” 

Nureyev rolled his eyes and reached for the bottle. Juno got there first and topped off his glass while Peter nodded his thanks. 

“Give it some time. It’s gonna sting like hell for now, but I think you did the right thing,” Juno said, trying his damndest to pry the intimacy from his voice. 

“I killed four people today, Juno.”

“And you saved a hell of a lot more. No judge or sheriff or whatever is gonna consider acting like that again.”

“Until they forget about it.”

“You’re a pretty unforgettable guy, Nureyev.”

Nureyev managed a weak nod, looking a little less like he was going to be ill. Juno took that as a sign of improvement. 

“How are you feeling?”

Peter set down his drink to shoot Juno a disbelieving glare.

“Bad, Juno.”

“Shitty question, sorry,” Juno winced. “Are you okay?”

Nureyev paused for a long moment, then sighed. 

“I think, at least in the long term, I will be,” Nureyev began, pushing his half-emptied glass to the side with a shake of his head. “If it’s fine by you, I would rather not talk about it at the moment. Anything else, really. I know there are several other conversations we need to have.”

“How okay are you to talk about things between us right now?” Juno tried to ask with a steady voice, though a crack betrayed his calm. 

Peter swallowed, then nodded. 

“It was going to come up at some point, I’m sure. It was my idea to come here in the first place, after all,” he said. “If I’m being wholly honest, I thought I would regret coming here more.”

Juno took a deep breath. 

“I’m sorry,” he began. A small, hopeful part of him had expected the weight of the world to fall from his shoulders the moment the words left his lips. The weight of the world, however, stubbornly remained. “I made the worst mistake of my life when I walked out on you. However I justified it to myself doesn’t matter. I don’t know if or how much it hurt, but it wasn’t right.”

Juno kept talking like that for sometime, tripping over and reiterating points until he was forced to break off in search of a breath that would not come. He swallowed thickly, eyes burning, and tried to press on once more, but Nureyev gave his hand a little squeeze. His voice died away entirely. 

Juno opened his mouth a few more times, but all his trains of thought crashed at that little gesture. His eyes flitted down to where Peter’s hand lay atop his. The grip was gentle, yet oddly loose. Upon realizing Nureyev was giving him a chance to pull his hand away, his fingers regained the function they had so recently seemed to lose and returned the squeeze. 

Peter let out an audible sigh of relief. 

“I—” he began, the sound falling away as no words came to follow it. Even in the few weeks the pair had known each other in person, Juno had never known him to be short on words. It was as if the room released a bated breath when Nureyev finally found it in him to speak. “I would like to try again.”

“Really?” was all Juno could manage. 

“If that’s alright with you, of course,” he added all too quickly. 

“Well, yeah, I didn’t just spill my guts to you for nothing,” Juno grinned, albeit with some hesitation. He felt the hand in his twitch as the fingers began to interlock with his. 

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” Juno confirmed, unsure of how he had managed to be rendered breathless by a single syllable. 

Juno couldn’t put his finger on how or why, but the space between them seemed to lighten. The orange flame of the lamp flickered a little higher, warming the room and casting a soft light onto Nureyev’s even softer face. Juno felt his expression soften a little too. 

“What?” Nureyev smiled. Juno thought he could have looked at it for hours.

“Will you run away with me?” 

“Juno Steel,” Nureyev began with a chuckle, speaking half to himself. “You’re a mystery I don’t think I’ll ever solve.”

“Same old Juno Steel you used to know, just with better coping mechanisms.”

Peter laughed, soft and musical and the sweetest thing Juno had heard in over a year. 

“So is that a yes?” he asked. 

“Of course. I just never thought it would be you doing the asking. I must confess, it nearly feels wrong,” Nureyev said. 

Juno stood, the loss of Peter’s hand a pang in his gut until Nureyev offered him his arm. He raised a hand as a gesture to wait, blew out the lamp, then took him up on the offer. 

“Quite the gentleman,” he teased. Walking out the back door of an office and to his horse wouldn’t usually be difficult, but his knees had decided not to work under Nureyev’s glowing gaze. 

“Always, for my lady,” Nureyev returned, pausing to whistle for Ruby when the back door swung open to greet the dry night air. “Unfortunately, it seems I must leave your hand to its own devices.”

Juno rolled his eyes, though his feigned annoyance was shattered by his blush when Peter pressed a kiss to the top of his hand. 

He had a feeling things would be like that for a while. They would hold and kiss hands, to start. Nureyev often said pet names in casual conversation, though they would fail to have the same weight for some time. Juno didn’t mind, really. As much as a part of him wanted to throw caution to the wind and kiss Peter right then and there, he couldn’t complain about the chance to court like a normal couple. 

Well, as close to normal as they could get. 

The whistle had attracted both Ruby and Blanche. Nureyev stayed on the ground a moment longer than Juno, offering his hand to help him onto the horse. Juno didn’t necessarily need the help, but found he didn’t mind the casual touch. 

“The big guy’s gonna kill you when he sees that horse,” Juno muttered to himself, barely able to hold in a laugh.

“What was that?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

“Where exactly is ‘there?’” Nureyev asked, Ruby starting at a trot to match Juno’s pace. 

“Just about due east of here. It’s a little saloon on the edge of Cerberus called the Lighthouse. Pretty hard to miss it. The whole staff’s a gang of bandits, and rumor has it they’re on the lookout for a new member,” Juno grinned. 

“Really, now. Do they take walk-in applications?”

“Probably not, but I’ll tell them you’re with me,” Juno snorted. 

The sun was beginning to rise, as soft and orange as the light of the lamp now smoking in Sheriff Omar Khan’s office. The gold anointed Nureyev’s face in such a way that Juno lost his breath, barely able to return a smile to the winning beam that Peter wore like it was nothing. 

“Is there something on my face, Juno?”

“It’s just—” he broke off, stuttering. “Your face, that’s all.”

“My, my, you always did have a way with words,” Nureyev teased, though he saved Juno from melting on the spot when he continued. “How soon do your comrades expect your return?”

“Some time today,” Juno shrugged. 

“I hope you don’t mind if Ruby and I take things slow, then,” Nureyev said with a devious smile. “She had quite the ride here, you know.”

“I’m sure.”

“And I certainly wouldn’t mind getting to spend some more time catching up with you.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

They rode to the east for some time, facing the rising sun in all the glory of a desert sunrise over a vast, clear sky. Juno barely spared a glance for the sight before him. The blazing sky above paled in comparison to that face, whose curves and angles he had spent so long trying to forget. His smile alone made the sun seem an ever farther star, like one of the many pinpricks in the purple remains of night. 

They chased the sun for what felt like hours. They lost, of course. 

Juno didn’t particularly care. The sun would rise tomorrow, and they could always try again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I really just finished a 10k fic, huh? Thank you all for sticking with me all the way through it!!
> 
> Make sure to smash that kudos button, leave a comment down below, and don't forget to stay awesome!!
> 
> My tumblr is @hopeless-eccentric if you want to yell at me about sweet sweet cowboy romance
> 
> Also if any of you want to see more from this AU, give me a heads up!!

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to yell at me about cowboys, my tumblr is @hopeless-eccentric !! 
> 
> Make sure to smash that kudos button, leave a comment down below, and don't forget to stay awesome gamers


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